Two passenger planes in terrifying near-miss over Scotland
Two packed passenger planes were just 100ft from crashing over Scotland because all four pilots misheard their flight instructions, reveals a new report.
The two Boeing 747s, carrying 1,000 passengers between them, were 30 miles north of Glasgow and preparing to cross the Atlantic when an air traffic controller spotted they were getting closer together, reports Sky News.
In fact, they were 10 miles apart and, just a minute later, they were three miles apart and still moving towards each other.
The air traffic controller ordered the plane on the left to take a left turn, and the told the right to take a right turn, hoping to move them apart.
But they did the opposite and only averted a crash when the pilots on the aircraft saw each other, and one climbed while the other dived.
At one point, they are just 100ft apart.
The incident occurred on 23 June this year, but details have only just emerged in a report from the UK Airprox Board, which looks at near-misses in UK airspace.
According to the Daily Mail, the report said: "It was apparent that both crews had taken each others' instructions and the board found it hard to determine why this had occurred.
"The board was surprised that all four pilots had misheard or misinterpreted the avoiding action instructions despite at least one of the crews reading them back correctly."
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